Summer Shorts: Series B

B

The second installment of this year’s one-act play festival at 59E59 Theater B begins with a work by Share White (The True, The Other Place), and concludes with one by Neil LaBute (The Shape of Things, Reasons To Be Pretty). In between, we get a comedic piece by Nancy Bleemer (Centennial Casting) which will become part of a trilogy. In White’s piece “Lucky,” set in the late 1940’s, we meet Meredith (Christine Spang; The Drunken City), a war bride whose husband Phil (Blake DeLong; Illyria) has mysteriously not returned home after WWII. She knows only that, although uninjured, he had been in a hospital. When she learns that he has just returned to town, she rushes to his hotel room to confront him. For a long — too long — time, all she gets from the sullen Phil is one-word responses that do not explain why he had not returned or whether he planned to stay. The answer is not worth the wait. One annoying quirk is that Phil performs the entire play with shaving cream on his sideburns. The festival’s artistic director J.J. Kandel (Sparring Partner) directed. In “Providence,” Bleemer introduces us to Michael (Jake Robinson; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) and Renee (Blair Lewin), a mostly happily married couple who are spending a sleepless night in the narrow bed of Michael’s childhood bedroom on the night before his sister's wedding. Their 3 a.m. conversation attracts the attention of Pauly (Nathan Wallace), the nervous groom-to-be, who seeks their advice on what married couples can talk about. Apparently his parents were not big on conversation. Pauly’s intrusion exposes a few fault lines in their marriage, but one has no doubt that all will be fine. The characters are likable and their comical situation is fun to watch. Ivey Lowe directed. LaBute’s “Appomatox” shows the playwright in much better form than he displayed in his three one-act plays last winter. We meet buttoned-down Caucasian Joe (Jack Mikesell; The Nap) and seemingly easy-going African-American Frank (Ro Boddie; Socrates) who get together weekly to have lunch and toss the ball. Joe shares his enthusiasm about Georgetown students’ vote to pay $27.20 in extra fees to atone for the university’s sale of 270 slaves. He is puzzled by Frank’s complete lack of enthusiasm and pushes him to explain his reasons. Their conversation gradually escalates into dangerous territory that casts doubt on the possibility of interracial understanding. LaBute builds the tension skillfully and all too convincingly. Duane Boutté's (LOL) direction is assured. It was by far the most substantive offering of this year’s festival. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Summer Shorts: Series A

C

The 13th season of this Festival of New American Short Plays is now underway at 59E59 Theater B. The three plays in Series A all involve death or the threat thereof. The first and strongest play, “Interior” by Nick Payne (Constellations, A Life), is an evocative adaptation of Maeterlinck's play. An old man (Bill Buell; Ink, Rancho Viejo) and a stranger (Jordan Bellow; New Here) who have found the body of a drowned girl stand outside her home, observing her family enjoying their final moments of happiness before they must inform them of her death. Buell gives a strong leading performance as the old man whose daughters Martha (Joanna Whicker) and Marie (Mariah Lee; I’m Sorry) also put in an appearance. The mood is greatly enhanced by artful projections of paintings by Sharon Holiner. Rory McGregor’s (Sea Wall/A Life) direction is sensitive. “The Bridge Play,” by Danielle Trzcinski (Little Black Dress!), portrays the mostly comical interaction between John (James P. Rees; The Killer) a depressed middle-aged man about to jump off a bridge and Alex (Christopher Dylan White; The Workshop), the social-media-addicted teenager who interrupts him. It scores some easy points but lacks any real sense of peril. Sarah Cronk directed. In “Here I Lie,” Courtney Baron (When It’s You) presents two overlapping monologues. In one, Maris (Libe Barer), a publishing assistant, on a sudden impulse, tells her boss she has terminal cancer, and then feels obligated to follow her lie to its logical conclusion. In the other, Joseph (Robbie Tann; Home Street Home), a pediatric nurse, becomes emotionally involved with a very sick preemie and ends up craving similarly tender care for himself. The two narrators ignore and interrupt each other, which quickly became tedious. While both stories are interesting, I did not think they were well-matched and the manner of telling them simultaneously diminished rather than enhanced them. I personally would have preferred being presented with just one of them. While this playwright’s technique was perhaps the most ambitious, it did not work for me. Maria Mileaf (After the Wedding) directed. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Rinse, Repeat

B-

With seemingly increasing frequency, Pershing Square Signature Center has been renting space to outside productions, including this unfortunately titled drama written by and starring Domenica Feraud. A “problem” play about an eating disorder, it would have fit more comfortably as a disease-of-the-week offering on the Lifetime channel. Debilitated by a severe case of anorexia, Rachel had to take a leave from her senior year at Yale to enter a residential treatment facility where she has spent the last four months. The action takes place during a trial weekend at her family home in Greenwich, CT which will determine whether she is ready to be discharged. Her svelte mother Joan (Florencia Lozano; Placebo, Privilege) is a second-generation Latin immigrant who is now a high-powered lawyer in a top law firm and the family’s main breadwinner. Her father Peter (Michael Hayden; The Lady from Dubuque, Cabaret) is a preppy, not very successful architect who has burned through a trust fund. Her younger brother Brody (Jake Ryan Lozano; Sweat) is a high school jock who tries to avoid his family as much as possible. Her caseworker Brenda (Portia; In Arabia We’d All Be Kings) has given Rachel’s parents strict instructions that Rachel must not be left alone during the weekend, a caveat that you can be sure will soon be ignored, with consequences that reveal deep rifts within the marriage and a secret about Joan. The depiction of Rachel's struggle with food is vivid and one feels for her. She has a brief nude moment justified by the plot. However, I was so drawn in by the toxic family dynamic that I wondered more about the future of the marriage than about Rachel. The production is lavish with a kitchen set by Brittany Vasta (Octet, Life Sucks) sure to evoke envy and excellent costumes by Nicole Slaven. Kate Hopkins’s (Cost of Living, After the Blast) direction is assured. With its topic and its infelicitous title, it is not an easy play to market, which probably explained the sparse audience. That’s a shame, because it has many absorbing moments and some fine acting, particularly by Florencia Lozano. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission.

Two's a Crowd

C

If you are seeking light summer entertainment and aren’t too fussy, you might enjoy this fluffy, dated comedy with music starring longtime comedian Rita Rudner, now at 59E59 Theater A. The intermittently funny book is by Rudner and her husband Martin Bergman, who also directed, and the serviceable music and rather leaden lyrics are by Jason Feddy, who also serves as singer and guitarist. Rudner plays Wendy, a 60-ish wedding planner from Cleveland who has come to Vegas to distract herself from her husband’s recent infidelities. Robert Yacko plays Tom, a recently widowed contractor, also from Cleveland, who is in Vegas to forget his sorrows by playing in a poker tournament. A computer glitch puts them in the same room in a completely booked hotel. They instantly dislike each other but, of course, get past their first impressions. We also meet Louise, the assistant manager, and Lili, the chambermaid, both played to the hilt by Kelly Holden Bashar. Brian Lohmann plays a few roles, including Wendy’s husband Gus. The hoary plot has few surprises. There are two types of songs, those sung by the actors which, during the first act, stop the action and contribute little, and short songs sung by Feddy between scenes. As of intermission, I would have said that the show would have been better off without music, but that changed during the second act when the songs were much more artfully integrated into the action. Lohmann, as Gus, gets a lively number that was the evening’s musical highlight. The dialogue has many snappy lines, as one would expect from Rudner. On the more serious side, there are some observations about the difficulty of being a woman over 60 today and even a few detours into the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. The shamelessly tasteless final song provides an appropriate ending for an uneven evening that is not quite ready for New York. Nevertheless, it was fun to see Rudner, who is looking very good indeed. I think I would have enjoyed an hour of her stand-up more than this show.

Running time: one hour 50 minutes including intermission.

Question: Is there any theater in New York that attracts a more homogeneous audience than 59E59 Theaters? I could count the number of people too young for Medicare on one hand. In my many visits there, I don’t think I have ever seen a person of color.

The Rolling Stone

B+

Lincoln Center Theater is presenting the American premiere of this gripping drama by young British playwright Chris Urch (Land of Our Fathers) that won several prizes when it was staged in the U.K. The title comes from the name of a Kampala tabloid that, in 2010, published the names, addresses and photos of 100 Ugandan men suspected of homosexuality, thereby subjecting them to vigilante mobs and long prison sentences. Denbe (Ato Blankson-Wood; Hair, Slave Play) is an 18-year old student who is carrying on a secret affair with Sam (Robert Gilbert; Julius Caesar), a mixed-race Northern Irish/Ugandan doctor who recently arrived in town. Denbe’s sister Wummie (Latoya Edwards; School Girls, Miss You Like Hell) is a year younger but in the same grade as Denbe. Both are studying for an exam to qualify for medical school. Their older brother Joe (James Udom; Miss Julie, The Winter’s Tale) has just been chosen pastor of their church after his predecessor abruptly resigned under suspicion of embezzlement. Mama (Myra Lucretia Taylor; Nine, Familiar) is a neighbor devoted to the church who lent her influence in favor of Joe's selection. She has a daughter Naome (Adenike Thomas; Freedom Train) who has mysteriously not spoken for six months and hopes that Pastor Joe can cure her. The siblings are shocked to learn that their recently deceased father left them only debts. The church cannot afford a salary for Joe until his builds up the congregation. Joe declares that one of his siblings must give up the dream of medical school to support the family. When Sam’s phone disappears and his apartment walls are defaced with anti-gay graffiti, he and Denbe go into panic mode fearing that they will be outed. Although they love their brother, Joe and Wummie have zero tolerance for homosexuality. The pace of the first act is a bit slow. There are a series of gripping confrontations in the second act that, unfortunately, lead to a rather unsatisfactory ending. The actors are very strong, especially Mr. Blankson-Wood as Denbe and Ms. Taylor as Mama. The role of Sam is underwritten, leaving his motivation a bit unclear. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (Bull in a China Shop, Sugar in Our Wounds) scenic design has a bare circular stage with a striking backdrop of wire and fabric inspired by the art of El Anatsui. Dede Ayite’s (Secret Life of Bees, Toni Stone) costumes, especially for Denbe and Mama, go a long way toward establishing the characters. Director Saheem Ali’s (Passage, Fireflies) direction is assured. It’s by no means a perfect play but the superb acting and the issues raised make it well worth seeing. Running time: one hour 55 minutes including intermission. NOTE: The play does not address the fact that the anti-homosexual campaigns in Africa have largely been fomented and financed by American evangelicals.

Here is a link to an interesting article about the playwright:

https://www.audreyjournal.com.au/arts/chris-urch-writing-the-rolling-stone/

Mojada

B+

This season’s mini-trend of reinterpreting classic works continues with this New York premiere by MacArthur Genius award winner Luis Alfaro, whose Oedipus El Rey was a hit at the Public last year. Alfaro has once again superimposed a story about the Latino immigrant experience onto a Greek tragedy, this time Euripides’s Medea. The play originated in Chicago in 2013 and has played in Portland and Los Angeles with revisions en route that changed the location to the city of performance. The current version at The Public Theater is set in Queens’s Corona neighborhood in the backyard of the decrepit house where Medea (Sabina Zuñiga Varela) lives with her lover Jason (Alex Hernandez; Kingdom Come), their 10-year old son Acan (Benjamin Luis McCracken) and Medea’s lifelong family servant Tita (Socorro Santiago; Unfinished Women), who is our narrator and chorus. Medea is a skilled seamstress doing piecework at home because she is too afraid to leave the house. Jason is a construction worker with a Cuban emigre boss Pilar (Ada Maris; Bang Bang Blues) whose primary interest in him is not his work skills. Luisa (Vanessa Aspillaga; Anna in the Tropics), a food cart vendor who fled Puerto Rico with her husband after a hurricane wiped them out, provides comic relief. Jason is eager for Acan to assimilate as rapidly as possible while Medea wants him to honor old ways. There are lengthy flashbacks, for me the strongest parts of the play, that recollect the family’s horrific experiences getting from their Mexican home to New York. If you are familiar with the Medea story, you may find the ways Alfaro foreshadows the climax a bit clumsy. The incorporation of elements of Michoacan folk healing traditions works fairly well. He very skillfully weaves into the story the experience of undocumented immigrants in today’s America. A few references are right out of the headlines. The acting is mostly strong; however, I found the depiction of Pilar a bit unmodulated. I also thought that Hernandez’s portrayal of Jason showed him too thoroughly assimilated. Cynic that I am, I have a hunch he was chosen more for his good looks and physique than his acting chops. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (A Strange Loop) scenic design offers no clue that the location is New York. Haydee Zelibeth’s (Playing Hot) costumes are very effective in establishing character. Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design (We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time) contributes a lot to the production. Director Chay Yew’s (Oedipus El Rey) direction is fluid. Even though the contemporary and ancient elements don’t always fit together seamlessly, the overall effect is very strong. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission. 

NOTE: The Public Theater has an annoying habit of hiding valuable information pertinent to the production in obscure locations in the Playbill. In this instance, there is a worthwhile article “Immigration & the Perils of the Journey” that is hidden several pages after the list of Public contributors. When you attend the Public, you would do well to give the Playbill a thorough once-over before curtain time.  By the way, “mojada” is a derogatory term corresponding to “wetback.”

Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow

B-

Poor Chekhov! Playwrights just can’t seem to resist putting their own stamp on his plays. Last month we got an encore run of Life Sucks., Aaron Posner’s quirky riff on Uncle Vanya. Now MCC Theater is presenting the New York premiere of Halley Feiffer’s (The Pain of My Belligerence, I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard) deconstruction of Three Sisters, which played at Wiiliamstown Theatre Festival two summers ago. Of the two adaptations, Feiffer’s is by far the more entertaining and is probably the truer to Chekhov. Feiffer gives us the original characters in exaggerated versions who leave no thought unsaid. The dialogue is anachronistic, coarse and often very funny. Feiffer daringly makes each sister so unsympathetic in her opening monologue that it is not easy to win our sympathy; she mostly succeeds at meeting this challenge. This production dials up the volume with provocative casting involving bending gender, changing race and introducing dwarfism. Somehow it works, probably because the actors are so convincing in their roles. Rebecca Henderson’s (The Wayside Motor Inn) Olga raises self-deprecation to an art form. Chris Perfetti (The Low Road) is so persuasive as Masha that it seems completely unremarkable for the role to be played by a man. Tavi Gevinson (This Is Our Youth, Days of Rage) captures both Irina’s allure and her aimlessness. As their feckless brother Andrey, Greg Hildreth (The Robber Bridegroom) is appropriately conflicted. Sas Goldberg (Significant Other) smoothly accomplishes the transformation of Natasha from target of scorn to tyrant. Steven Boyer (Hand to God, Time and the Conways) is tender and pathetic as Irina’s suitor Tuzenbach. Casting Solyony with a dwarf, the excellent Matthew Jeffers (Light Shining in Buckinghamshire), makes the universal scorn he receives even more uncomfortable. Alfredo Narciso (Time and the Conways) makes Vershinin both sexy and pitiful. As Masha’s husband Kulygin, Ryan Spahn (Gloria) is appropriately irritating. Ray Anthony Thomas (Jitney) brings pathos to the role of Dr. Chebutykin. Ako (God Said This) makes a strong impression as the family’s ancient servant Anfisa. As minor civil servant Ferapont, Gene Jones (The Trip to Bountiful) is aptly bumbling. The humor of the first act is less in evidence after intermission. By the end, we are more saddened than amused. Director Trip Cullman (Choir Boy, Lobby Hero), Feiffer’s frequent collaborator, shows great affinity for her sensibility. The production shows off MCC’s black box theater to great advantage. With the audience sitting on facing sides of the raised stage platform, no one is more than four rows from the actors. The key visual element of Mark Wendland’s (The Pain of My Belligerence) scenic design is a large illuminated “Moscow” sign over a diorama of the city at one end of the auditorium. Paloma Young’s (Peter and the Starcatcher) costumes mix period gowns with modern tee shirts and hoodies. I was frequently entertained along the way, but when it was over I had to ask myself what the point was. I don’t see what contribution Feiffer has made to the appreciation of Chekhov. I would like to declare a hundred-year moratorium on adapting or deconstructing his works. Running time: 2 hours including intermission. NOTE: I strongly urge you to brush up on Three Sisters before attending.